Nust or­dered not to bar stu­dents from writ­ing ex­ams over un­paid fees

THE Govern­ment has or­dered the Na­tional Univer­sity of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy (Nust) to re­verse its de­ci­sion to bar stu­dents who have not paid fees from writ­ing ex­am­i­na­tions that are ex­pected to start to­day.

Nust is owed more than $500 000 by stu­dents on self­fund­ing pro­grammes.

Po­lice had to be called to the in­sti­tu­tion last Thurs­day to re­store or­der as stu­dents protested against Nust’s de­ci­sion that those who have not paid fees would not sit for end of se­mes­ter ex­am­i­na­tions.

The stu­dents sub­se­quently en­gaged the Govern­ment which or­dered the univer­sity to al­low them to regis­ter so that they can write their ex­am­i­na­tions and make pay­ments later.

In an in­ter­view, Nust’s di­rec­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and mar­ket­ing Mr Felix Moyo said all stu­dents would sit for their ex­am­i­na­tions.

He said Nust was in con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Min­istry of Higher and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy De­vel­op­ment over “un­usual sit­u­a­tions” such as stu­dents’ fail­ure to pay fees.

Mr Moyo said while the Min­istry or­dered that all stu­dents should write ex­am­i­na­tions, their re­sults and cer­tifi­cates would be with­held.

“They’re go­ing to regis­ter and then write. They must still talk to the bur­sar and come up with a pay­ment plan. The com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Min­istry talks about hold­ing their re­sults, hold­ing their cer­tifi­cates and what have you,” he said.

Mr Moyo said stu­dents should re­port to the Nust’s bur­sar’s of­fice and make pay­ment plans be­cause some of them have never paid since en­rolling at the in­sti­tu­tion.

“I don’t have the ex­act fig­ure now but it’s more than half a mil­lion dol­lars. The in­di­vid­ual stu­dents who have the high­est ar­rears owe about $2 700.

“And you can see how many semesters that is if you di­vide by $500. We are talk­ing about more than five semesters and this means some­one has been com­ing to univer­sity for more than two years with­out pay­ing fees,” he said.

Mr Moyo said the harsh eco­nomic en­vi­ron­ment should not be used as an ex­cuse for not com­mit­ting to the pay­ment of fees.

“In as much as we all talk about dif­fi­cul­ties that we have, the dif­fi­cul­ties face ev­ery­body in­clud­ing uni­ver­si­ties. Uni­ver­si­ties need to pro­vide wa­ter, elec­tric­ity, broad­band and pro­vide a clean en­vi­ron­ment for the stu­dent. That has to be paid for. Par­ents should make an ef­fort so that we share the bur­den to en­sure that the stu­dents go through their de­gree pro­grammes,” he said.-@nqot­shili —

HEALTH HAZARD . . . Now that the rainy sea­son has be­gun, it is im­por­tant for par­ents to mon­i­tor chil­dren to avoid wa­ter-borne dis­eases as many play with dirty wa­ter. The pic­ture taken re­cently in Njube, Bu­l­awayo, shows chil­dren play­ing in a pool of dirty wa­ter. (Pic­ture by Eliah Saushoma)